About Me
My advice to every Gator:
Take some classes for pure enjoyment! This is perhaps the only time in your life when you’ll have the chance to explore the further horizons of your intellectual curiosity. Be fearless!
My favorite UF tradtion:
I of course loved the traditions around attending football games, but one tradition that has stuck with me over the years was the Sounds of the Season concert in November. One year in the early aughts the entire audience participated in a candlelit procession to Century Tower. It was magical.
Biggest surprise after UF:
I was, and continue to be, endlessly surprised at the many potential happy and fulfilling lives that we each contain. I wish I’d understood how rich and varied the possibilities ahead of me could be when I thought I had my life planned out at 21.
Career Story
My love of language has motivated my studies and subsequent career path, from my beginnings as an English major at the University of Florida, to my stint as a poet in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins, and finally to my completion of a PhD in Italian at Harvard.
I am extremely fortunate, in my current role as the Associate Director of the Harvard Language Center, to be able to continue to support language learning and to champion the value of an education in the humanities.
Education
- 2003 BA English, University of Florida
- 2004 MA Italian Studies, University of Pennsylvania
- 2007 MFA Creative Writing and Poetry, Johns Hopkins University
- 2014 Ph.D. Italian Language & Literature, Harvard University
Honors and Awards
- Culture Lab Innovation Fund Award for Harvard Language Exchange, Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging, Harvard University (2022)
- Department of Romance Languages and Literatures Teaching Prize, Harvard University (2015)
- Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Harvard University (Fall 2011, Spring 2017, Fall 2017)